He was a highly decorated amateur who did well in the pros until losing to Alexis Arguello for the WBC lightweight title.
Maybe one of the most under-rated U.S Amateur boxers ever. Throw in, Davey Armstrong and Jesse Valdez, and New York's Vince Shomo
Too bad,,,,,,,,James Busceme caught a bad draw,,,,,getting lined up with the great Jan 'Zap-Zap' Szczepanski (Poland) in the 3rd Round. Zap-Zap won the Gold Medal at 132 lbs.
Busceme was a good, solid pro -- not a great one. Lot of skill but always looked small in the few fights I saw him, and appeared to be kind of short-armed for a boxer. He was artful enough to give a lot of the top lightweight/junior lightweight types of his day trouble, but probably wouldn't have beaten most of them.
I remember he had a lot of those Southern bouts in Texas and Lake Charles, and a bunch of un-documented wins,,,, And had a couple of ESPN fights.
He must have fought a bunch of those weekend amateur meets. He did pop in a couple of decent wins in the Professional Ranks. Probably would have fared better versus Hilmer Kenty or Ernesto Espana.
He fought a smart fight for as long as he lasted against Arguello. It was obvious from the start that he was going to try running away with a hometown decision, and Flash Gordon had him pitching s shutout going into round six. Alexis also seemed to understand that Busceme was trying to steal the decision, and was very actively slipping Bubba's right elbow flicking jabs. If James wasn't pitching a shutout, it was because Arguello's knee bending evasions were rendering that aggression ineffective. At the end, Busceme seemed determined to remain on his feet, and admitted as much in his post fight interview. He also said Alexis was pretty much what he expected with one exception. Bubba did say he was a little quicker than anticipated.
His 1981 bout versus Jose Cabrera is on You Tube somewhere. A 10-round decision win, over a decent and duarable fighter.
I remember watching bubba in the '72 national golden gloves in Minneapolis. Most all of us golden glovers wanted to be like him, he was special.
Bubba was the type of fighter that needed to get out of the Golden Triangle and go to New York ( or Las Vegas) and become the 15% better fighter that would have put him on top.
I was talking to him and he was telling me how he would lure people into a corner by pretending to be hurt when he was actually not and would suddenly use their momentum against them along with his elbow to throw them into the corner that he had been playing opussum in, and punish them for all of their past transgressions.
James"Bubba"Busceme and Nick Wells, Busceme was a four time national golden gloves champion and five time texas golden gloves state champion This content is protected